I don't think I've wanted to see a character die as badly as I wanted to see Deimos die. While his defeat leaves open the potential for his return at some point through some sort of deus ex machina and he has value as a villain...I hated this character so, so very much. Even if he never pops his head up again something about his fate just seems unsatisfactory to me, but it works well in the story...so there's that.

What was so hate-able about him ?

He had "plot armor" for starters. He was angsty, abrasive, self-centered, duplicitous and whiny and never accepted responsibility for his own role in his misfortunes, which is fine. Those are all natural human traits and provide a solid basis for being planted in the "heel" camp. What got me though was his ability to kill Libra when he had no fewer or exploitable weaknesses than anyone else who'd faced that particular villain, so then he gets the artifacts that make him invincible, which was a big WTF moment for me...but, plot armor. Then, in a game where a host of the biggest bads are practically deity level, it's always nice to see the murderous human level foes actually get the comeuppance they deserve, but Deimos did not. Sure he got foiled and trapped, but he didn't get punished for his murderous misdeeds...and I'm a big believer in punishment.

His entire plot arc and personality made me want him dead more than I wanted nearly any other villain dead (who could be permanently killed) and he escaped a final reckoning... so yeah...hate this guy.

Sure he got foiled and trapped, but he didn't get punished for his murderous misdeeds...and I'm a big believer in punishment.

EO mentioned that Deimos is teased as showing up in the next book, set six months after his downfall. That's not just six months in a prison cell. It's six months of immortality, trapped inside of an unbreakable bubble. That's six months without another person touching him. That's six months without eating or drinking. That's six months without being able to sit in a chair or lay down on a bed. That's six months without a shower--without deodorant. That's six months of being unable to smell fresh baked cookies or cider and rose. Sure, the guards can come by his cell and talk to him, but why would they want to? It's not like they need to bring him anything. It's not like they can. The cell he's in isn't the prison: the prison is the one he made himself--by pushing away anyone who was ever a friend or gave two craps about him. The prison he's in is one that resulted from his ego. He fought Libra because Libra took the joy of killing Phobos from him. He fought the school because he wanted to prove something. What happened is his own fault, and it could be debated whether or not he has enough self-awareness to know it.

An argument can be made, however, that this punishment clearly isn't enough. Deimos can end this whenever he wants. He's mimicking immortality--either from Atlanta or Connor. All he has to do is just let go, and he'll starve to death inside of the bubble. Or, if that's too long and drawn out, he could tear out the Eye of Polyphemus and end himself on the spot. He doesn't, though, because despite the nightmare that he's now trapped in, he's staying put. Deimos and Deimos alone can end the torment by just ending his own life, but that he's survived up to the point Lodestone sees him means he hasn't arrived at a place where that's preferable to what his existence has become. If that's the case, maybe he needs to suffer worse than this. However, that won't happen. Barring the deaths of everyone in the school, Deimos isn't leaving that barrier. Not without, as HH pointed out, a deus ex machina.

So is "Oubliette" a book or something? Looking it up on Google, I see it's a fantasy role-playing game like D&D. How do they differ? I remember seeing threads/settings named "Oubliette" eons ago on the ATT, but I'll confess I never made much of an attempt at reading them, as I was busy with my own thread and I didn't recognize any of the characters. I didn't realized you'd posted once in February and then waited till now for more stuff .

Oubliette is the setting name for the New Vindicator (and other) games that Michuru has been running for years. More than a decade of TT and PBP in RL. Though so far due to various breaks and pauses, in-universe it's covered a timeframe from 2007 to late 2009, and we in NVAE have not yet caught up to the current point: the start of Book 14 Ira Deorum in Nov. 2009.

You'd be surprised how much plotting and twists Michuru has meticulously planned out.

GamesImago in New Vindicators Academy of EuropeVortex in Force OPsEvan Roadbound in The Golden Wheel TurnsMenagerie in Claremont Academy: The Delinquents

I've been following it off and on for as long as I can remember and there's so much history now, I haven't even tried to catch up from where I left off. It's amazing stuff, though. As EnigmaticOne noted, the detail and sprawling continuity of the setting are unmatched.

Like the others said, Oubliette is my campaign setting. Basically, in 1900, some wizards fought a war and some demons got let loose. They like to pose as regular dudes, seduce human women, and father kids. Those kids and their progeny get super-powers, but the world's pretty much in the dark about that. They just know people are born with powers and they don't like them, but they're slowly starting to warm up to them after about the eighteenth time supers saved the world.

The main game in the campaign universe--New Vindicators--deals with these demons using mankind in a game they're playing against each other. A bunch of teenagers and their pet rock know about the demons' war and are pretty much at the epicenter of it all. The Illuminati was a game that deals with weird stuff in the world. The PBP game--New Vindicators Academy of Europe--deals with alternate dimensions and magic.

Physical Description: Nicole is a quiet young lady with shoulder-length auburn hair, pale skin, and a freckled face. These are features only observed when Nicole is feeling apathetic—no emotions at all. Her ability reflexively alters her skin colour to reflect whatever emotion she is feeling. If she is sad, her skin turns blue; when she is happy, it turns pink. She tends to dress modestly, wearing plain white tops and jeans. Nicole seldom wears colours, due to her fear of her skin clashing with what she is wearing.

Biography: With powers that manifested in infancy, Nicole was picked on as a young child, leading her parents to home school her. As she grew older, she yearned to be able to go to a normal school—where she could make friends, or maybe even have a boyfriend. As she entered high school, her parents allowed her to attend classes at the New Vindicators Academy of America.

As a freshman, she found herself on the Leftovers, a training squadron that also consisted of Mickie Daniels, Jamal Freeman, and Chad Winter.

As her freshman year concluded, Apocatastasis was raised by one of the Vindicators, Simulacrum, in a bid to increase his powers. At the same time, the Armada arrived, bridging the universe with two others. When the decision was made to sacrifice her world, Nicole and her family was evacuated to Oubliette-137. Here, she was enrolled in the New Vindicators Academy of Europe, where she met Doug Droll, whom she has begun dating.

Michuru wrote:As I've said numerous times before, I like useless powers. Not everyone is going to hit the genetic lottery and get flight, impervious skin, pyrokinesis, or telepathy. Some people just get horns, or gills, or the power to curdle all milk in a five mile radius. Not everyone's abilities will be a boon in combat, and that's the role Nicole gets to play.

Her ability is fairly straight-forward: she is a human mood ring. She's finished up one year at the NVA of an alternate future, so she has a little bit of self-defense, but nothing that is going to make her shine.

Physical Description: The Embalming Man appears to be a man in his early to mid-twenties. He has a gaunt frame. He cuts his short, brown hair himself, leaving it frequently uneven in odd places.

Biography: In the summer of 2017, a serial killer terrorized the island of Manhattan… one who only chose the famous as his victims. He first made headlines when a sitcom actor was found dead behind a bistro. While the cause of death was ruled to be strangulation, police were baffled when they discovered the victim embalmed.

Over the next few weeks, more were found—all strangled and all embalmed: a front guard for the Knicks, a state senator, an actor from a procedural police drama, the drummer for a band… The Vindicators became involved when one of their own—Hourglass—was claimed as his sixth victim.

Calling in allies from across the globe, the Vindicators hunted for the man and ultimately found him in a condemned building on the Lower East Side. In the ensuing fight, he grabbed the Hound and rendered the hero unable to move. The killer had tipped his hand: he was a Neo-Sapien whose touch could strip his victims of their ability to fend off his attack.

The other heroes were able to soundly defeat the man and he was soon sentences to life in Pandora, a new prison being used for the worst of super-powered offenders.

In reality, Pandora was an alternate dimension being used by Argus to recruit an army of cutthroats he would unleash upon the multiverse. (NVAE #22) When the Armada arrived between Oubliettes 137, 720, and 731, the Embalming Man was tasked with defending the Elpis’ servers. This put him against Team Delta, who handily bested him and left him restrained inside of a storage room. He was still aboard the ship when it shifted to Argus’ home dimension and became trapped in an infinite loop. (NVAE #25)

Michuru wrote:When it came to designing the Armada, I needed people who 1) posed a danger on their homeworld to justify tossing them on Pandora; and 2) wouldn't be a gigantic threat to the PCs come time to fight. This resulted in a slew of the Armada being one-trick ponies--guys who really only had one power to play with that could be horrible to face in the wrong circumstances, but only slightly annoying against a team.

TEM here could have some potential if given his own session: the PCs tasked with finding a serial killer--someone who hides in the shadows and picks people off one at a time? If the dice like him, that DC 20 Fortitude save could ruin someone's weekend. Sure, he can menace NPCs all day long, but the PCs are going to make short work of him once he makes the mistake of throwing down.

Physical Description: Wearing a suit of lean muscle and a mop of shaggy brown hair, Ebb looks to be in his late teens. He typically wears dark colors, and is never seen without his black trench coat.

Powers and Abilities: Ebb’s Neo-Sapien ability allows him to distort matter on a molecular level, letting him move through solid matter by disabling binding forces. In this state, Ebb’s touch deteriorates matter. Further, in this form, he is more difficult to hit as he can easily separate himself around attacks. By breaking down the atoms of what is around him, he is able to sustain himself in this state.

Biography: Little is known of Ebb’s past prior to his first encounter with the New Vindicators, other than that he fled a DEA sting, leaving his girlfriend, Aisha Stein, behind to face the music on his behalf.

In order to put distance between his daughter and her boyfriend, Aisha’s father enrolled her in the New Vindicators Academy. Ebb followed Aisha to New York and tried to abduct her. Though he proved resilient enough to avoid Cyndi’s powers entirely, the presence of several former Vindicators on staff detoured him from all-out attacking the school. (TB #2)

A handful of New Vindicators—the training squadron called The New Guys—were the next to encounter Ebb. Ebb began trying to encroach on the territory controlled by Kapisanan, the Filipino mafia. Taking advantage of the only weakness they knew—Ebb’s fear of spiders—the boys were able to physically harm Ebb before he retreated. (TB #6)

Ebb next surfaced as a member of the Society Scelerati. During their opening salvo, Ebb spirited Quake and Baron Malevolence into the New Vindicators Academy, resulting in the abduction of Drew and Josie Loder, and Derryl Isaacson. Ebb next placed Derryl into a sensory deprivation chamber, and buried it in an unmarked grave. With Ebb the only person able to access the boy’s inescapable prison, he attempted to use Derryl as a hostage, demanding Aisha be turned over to him. (TB #16-17)

Blackmailed into working for mob boss Sebastian “Black Tie” Rodriguez, Eric Vaughn was tasked with abducting the man’s daughter, Kara, from the boarding school her mother had sent her to. Black Tie declared that his son, Alex, would accompany Eric, only for the New Vindicator to realize Ebb was Black Tie’s eldest child. In attacking the Avalon Academy for Young Ladies, Ebb was taken prisoner by the headmistress, and Eric fled, leaving Ebb’s fate unknown. (TB #20)

Ebb escaped, only to rejoin the Society Scelerati. When the Vindicator Simulacrum moved to resurrect the ancient Nephilim Apocatastasis, the Vindicators moved to stop him--an act which cost all of them save Lodestone their lives. In an effort to save their world, the Society Scelerati formed a temporary alliance with the New Vindicators and worked to try and stop this new threat. Their efforts were cut short, however, by the arrival of the Elpis, bridging their world with two others: Oubliette-137 and Oubliette-720.

Ultimately, the decision was made to sacrifice the world to stop both Apocatastasis and the Armada. An evacuation was performed, with Ebb being counted among the refugees. Shortly after arriving in Oubliette-137, he and the Society Scelerati fled before the New Vindicators from their world could move to detain them. (NVAE #24-25)

Michuru wrote:Ebb was created to be a pretty major thorn in the PC's side--someone who could easily be a recurring problem for them. I wanted someone they couldn't just punch away, and Insubstantial 4 seemed like the best fit. From there, I brainstormed until we have... all that.

Still, I don't like the idea of a villain the heroes can't beat. Ebb has a pretty big vulnerability (that the players still don't know about, hence the redacting), and a major fear of spiders. Other than that, the players have found ways of manipulating Ebb. You can't punch him, but you can trick him, and reason with him. As Eric found out during Ebb's last appearance, Ebb's also pretty susceptible to mental attacks...

Powers and Abilities: By holding two people's hands, Patrick enables them to understand each other, despite any linguistic barriers that may be in place between them.

Physical Description: Patrick is a muscular young man with short, brown hair and has several piercings ringing his left ear. Normally he is seen wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and boots. His uniform is unmodified.

Relationships: Philip Brown (father), Colleen Brown (mother)

Biography: When Patrick was eleven, his father was arrested for robbery. A year later, Patrick was issued a ASBO for smoking and disorderly conduct. That soon escalated to vandalism, and soon after, criminal damage to private property was added to his repertoire of skills. Being given community service hardly impeded Patrick’s penchant for salacious activity. He soon found himself running with other young offenders.

He and his friends were recruited to join in a heist planned by a gang. Amongst the gang’s members was a Spaniard incapable of understanding English—or tolerating the young boys. When the Spaniard shoved one of Patrick’s friends, a fight looked to be looming on the horizon. Patrick tried to separate them, and in doing so, both parties found they could inexplicably understand each other.

The phenomena led everyone to incorrectly believe Patrick was a Neo-Sapien. Patrick balked at their accusations—refusing to believe he had powers. Fearing the worst, he ran away, only to begin to question his own status as an SPB. After some testing, he realized he did have an ability: so long as he was touching two people, they could perfectly understand each other.

When Patrick brought the existence of his powers to his mother’s attention, she kicked him out of the house. With nowhere left to go, Patrick contacted the New Vindicators Academy, and was enrolled in the New Vindicators Academy of Europe.

Michuru wrote:Three years ago, the players in the NVAE game and I conceived an NPC together. I'd toss out a concept, and they could tack on whatever features they wanted (nationality, disabilities, complications, ect.). This is the result of our efforts: the players gave him allergies, wanderlust, and a hatred for his abilities.

To date, Pat hasn't shown up in the game, but now that we're entering a new semester, guess who just happens to be on the roster of new students?

Physical Description: Lena is a petite girl with short, wavy hair. Her face is dotted with freckles. She tends to favor simple clothes: jeans, T-shirts, flannel shirts. Her New Vindicators uniform is unmodified.

Biography: Lena never imagined she’d be a candidate for the New Vindicators Academy: neither of her parents were Neo-Sapiens. She had never met a single super-powered being. That changed drastically during her first year of higher education, when she suddenly became the most popular girl in school. Everyone loved Lena: the preppy girls who had picked on her in years past, the jocks she’d crushed on—every social clique embraced her completely, and Lena didn’t question it.

Her older sister, however, began to grow jealous. A call to the United Nations yielded a visit from representatives of the New Vindicators Academy of Europe. While they concluded that Lena was not a Neo-Sapien—thus saving her parents’ marriage—they discerned that Lena was an Esper subconsciously using her powers to make people accept her.

Michuru wrote:Lena is another of the quirky powers that populate the NVAE: she has an odd ability that will likely never be used to save the world, thus allowing the PCs to be the ones to save the day.

The main notes I have are on her background: first, the idea that Espers should ruin marriages. Think about it for a second: if the public is only aware of Neo-Sapiens, and know Neo-Sapiens inherit their powers from their parents, and a kid comes along who has powers, but neither parent has the powers, dad's going to assume that mom wasn't always so loyal. Second, the idea of some random teenager calling the United Nations seems ludicrous, but the public would have to have some way of contacting the school. Without some sort of Cerebro-type deus ex-machina in play, there would need to be a way for the various NVA's to become notified of a new Neo-Sapien. Would this hotline be plagued by a plethora of hoaxes? Sure, but in cases like this, it bears fruit.